Friday, June 22, 2012

Human Spare Parts

Antonio
Medina saw his wife dead on a table, her chest wide open, and her heart and
lungs were missing. That was how a Central American migrant and his wife ended
up after being kidnapped by a gang of organ snatchers while the couple were en
route to the United States in search of greener pastures. In the Sinai desert,
refugees from Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea who are attempting to reach Israel
are being snatched by Bedouin tribes only to become unwilling organ donors on
demand. Crooked doctors from Cairo would call in to ask for availability of
body parts and if a qualified helpless “donor” is on hand, a mobile clinic will
be set up somewhere in the desert and an unfortunate refugee will be operated
on and then dumped for dead. As one Bedouin chief put it, “It’s like spare
parts for a car. The doctors come with some sort of mobile fridge where the
organs can be stored for six to eight hours and resold in Cairo or elsewhere.”
In China, the organs of an executed prisoner are sold to the highest bidder by
unscrupulous government personnel. Organ harvesting is taking place in the
Philippines, Turkey, Iran, Czech Republic, Georgia, Pakistan, India, Mozambique
and South Africa where surgeons remove kidneys, lungs, liver, corneas, bones,
tendons, heart valves, skin and other human parts and then transported to the
United States, Germany, Scandinavia, United Kingdom, Israel and other rich
countries for distribution. Due to the shortage of willing and legitimate organ
donors, this business of stealing a person’s organs for the sake of money has become
more profitable than human smuggling or even drug trafficking.